Feeding Stray Animals

Those who know a lot more about animals than I do tell us that one of the worst things we can do for the “wild” version of our furry, or feathered, friends is to feed them. Our version of their diets may not be the best for them and, even if we carefully select the proper foods, we can weaken their ability to forage for themselves and make them unusually dependent upon us for food and ultimately, for survival. Unfortunately, I guess I will have to file that information away under the heading of “good advice that I have ignored.”

While I actually have been the official caretaker of only 5 cats in my life – I will not use the word “owned” – I have been the unofficial benefactor of several more critters, both domestic and wild. In the mid 1990s I lived at an apartment complex that did not allow pets. But when a stray cat appeared on my patio, I put out food for it. The next night, the cat appeared again. And then the next, and then the next. Suddenly, I was feeding the stray every night. The cat would show up for dinner every night, right after sundown. In the winter, it would show up at 5:30 or 6:00 pm. In the summer, dinner would wait until 9:00 pm.

I named the cat Hobo, because of its shameless willingness to accept my handouts. Someone told me that once you name an animal, it is yours. Not true. Not even close to being true. I never got anywhere near Hobo, and it was only after she showed up with a kitten one night that I decided she must be a she.

I remember sitting at the table in my apartment’s dining room one winter evening eating dinner and looking out the sliding glass doors of my patio. When my eyes finally focused, there was Hobo, staring in at me, wondering why her dinner was late. In the coldest part of winter I made a makeshift house out of cardboard boxes and lined the boxes with a blanket to try to provide Hobo with some shelter from the wind and the cold. I would warm a mixture of water and milk for her and once I even made her a chicken potpie, which she devoured. But she almost never used the house I built for her.

This went on for about 15 months. When I moved out of the apartment, Hobo was left to fend for herself. That concerned me – a LOT. But then, one night at the store I ran into a former neighbor of mine from the apartment complex and she told me that they were feeding my cat. So, I allowed myself to think that Hobo would be OK, knowing full-well that was probably not the case.

Since then, I have fed birds and squirrels and rabbits in my yard. I eat at least 5 apples each week, and for the past 10 years I have been tossing my apple cores into the backyard. Not one of them is still around. I had a very large tree on the side of my house, and until I had to have the tree removed this past Fall, I would place an apple core on a low fork in the tree. It never last more than an hour or two before some hungry squirrel would scurry down the tree and grab it.

Finally, in early September, I guess, I began feeding another stray cat. Like Hobo, this cat would show up right after dark each night, eat her fill – I THINK she was a she – and then leave. After much internal debate, I named this latest moocher Sundown. I was actually going to name her Mooch, but that name was already taken.

Well, about 6 weeks ago – sometime in mid-November, I guess, I looked out and saw Sundown chowing down to her evening treat. As I watched her, I thought to myself, “Wow, that kitty is really getting chubby.” I turned on the lights to get a better look at her and discovered that kitty was not a kitty at all, but a opossum! And, this opossum seemed to LOVE cat food. My first inclination was to shoo her away, which I did. But, she came back about 30 minutes later, apparently deciding that the lure of the cat food was greater than any fear she had of me. For a while, her persistence irked me, but then I thought, “Oh well, all God’s creatures have to eat, I guess.”

For about a month, the opossum -- whom I have since named “Porky” -- and Sundown co-existed pretty well. Usually, they would take turns. Sundown would come early in the evening and Porky a little later. Unlike Porky, Sundown never ate everything, so there was always something left over for Porky. Once, they showed up at the same time, with Porky eating a discarded apple while Sundown ate the cat food.

It now has been a couple of weeks, at least, since I have seen Sundown. The story I am telling myself is that she was not as wild as I imagined and that her official caretaker has taken her in during the worst of the winter weather. Deep down inside I know the odds of that being the truth are probably less than 50-50, but it is amazing how convincing we can be when lying to ourselves. Meanwhile, Porky continues to show up every evening. Last night, I even managed to get a picture of her. She sat still for the first couple of shots, but after five flashes of light, she decided that was too much and took off back into the hedges. But, once again, she was back in about a half an hour to finish off the rest of her dinner.